A biology major, Jo Opdyke Wilhelm says she found a love for ecology while studying abroad in the Republic of Palau. The senior environmental scientist for the King County Water and Land Resources Division in Seattle has been in her role for seventeen years, but her path wasn\u2019t always so steady. \u201cIn my first ten years out of college, I did a ton of three- to six-month seasonal positions and temporary jobs and did ecological work on the side,\u201d she says. \u201cI worked in Papua New Guinea, and I\u2019ve touched most corners of the United States chasing opportunities to get experience and figure out ultimately what I wanted to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today she designs, implements, and monitors stream, river, and near-shore habitat restoration projects in the role of ecologist or project manager. The team takes down barriers and hard armoring that humans have put into a system, but they also create habitats. \u201cAll of those habitats are critical for salmon, especially when they are young and just coming out of the gravel,\u201d she says. \u201cThey need quiet water to get out of the main floods, to find food, to grow, and get big. Without proper habitats, they are less likely to be able to survive and come back and spawn and create the next generation of salmon.\u201d Wilhelm shared some career lessons she\u2019s learned in the field and elsewhere along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The passion piece of mission-driven work comes naturally to me. I\u2019ve always looked for jobs that I believe in. One of the things that I love most about what I do now is that we\u2019re making change on the landscape. We\u2019re taking degraded systems and trying to improve and restore them. Over time, you can see the change. You see it when the big yellow steel vehicles are out there moving dirt, and when the first floods come through. Watching how these projects evolve and watching the fish use them is amazing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you get eight ecologists in the room, you\u2019re probably going to get eight different opinions. The reality is, none of them are wrong and none of them are right, but some people speak more loudly and more confidently. My ongoing journey is having confidence in what I\u2019ve seen, and what I\u2019ve understood, and what I\u2019ve learned, and then applying that to the projects and making sure that my opinion and my voice are being heard in those conversations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Recently, I was encouraged to apply for a supervisory job. Part of my brain was saying, \u201cGo for it, this is a step up,\u201d but I couldn\u2019t get excited about it because I really love what I\u2019m doing now. The mistake I\u2019ve seen people make is doing what society is encouraging them to do and not listening to their heart. I\u2019m privileged in that I was able to say, \u201cNo. It\u2019d be a little bit more money, but I\u2019m okay where I am.\u201d It can be valuable and important to recognize what you like to do and what you find joy and fulfillment in, and staying true to that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Depending on what I\u2019m doing, when I\u2019m out in the field I\u2019ve got my personal protective equipment\u2014steel-toed boots, reflective vest, hard hat, eye protection, ear protection. Project engineering plans (hard copy or on my phone), project specifications, my phone\u2014for looking up water-quality data, compliance information, regulators\u2019 contact info in case there is a fish kill I need to call in. Water, snacks, car keys, GPS, mallet and stake to mark spots visually, lots of flagging tape, Sharpies, chest waders, knee boots, sampling equipment (for water quality or fish), measuring tape, and my EpiPen and Benadryl. I have an allergy to some kind of stinging insect, but I haven\u2019t figured out what it is yet.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The ecologist and project manager shares lessons she’s learned in the field and elsewhere.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1077,"featured_media":19061,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","mediatype-articles"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"fields":{"article_type":[8],"flickr_photoset_id":"","youtube_id":"","square_thumbnail":false,"press_photos":false,"story_title":"","story_caption":"","rotations":false,"maps":false,"marker_title":"","marker_text":"","geographic_location":false,"feature_embed":"","custom_link_url":"","news_icon_name":"","image_options":false,"main_feature_story":"","custom_image":false,"custom_feature_title":"","custom_feature_caption":"","custom_markup":"","custom_markup_link":"","custom_markup_title":"","custom_markup_caption":"","byline":"","post_thumbnail_style":"default","press_downloads":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1077"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19027"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30917,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19027\/revisions\/30917"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}